Conventionally, in semiconductor manufacturing technology, the unit cost of manufacturing chips is reduced by increasing the diameter of the semiconductor wafers. This caused the sizes and costs of apparatuses used in a series of manufacturing processes to increase steadily, and the scale and the construction/operation cost of a manufacturing plant to swell. Such a large-scale manufacturing system contributes to reduction in the unit cost of manufacturing chips in a case of mass production of a small variety, but is not suitable for meeting a demand for small-quantity production of a wide variety, and makes adjustment of the amount of production according to the market condition and entry of small to medium-sized companies difficult.
Accordingly, to solve these problems, there are proposed small semiconductor manufacturing apparatuses capable of manufacturing semiconductor chips at a low cost by using small-diameter semiconductor wafers (for example, see Patent Literatures 1 to 3).